Democracy or Bonapartism in Europe - A Reply to Pierre Frank

Lenin's aphorism that we live in an epoch of wars and revolutions - to which
Trotsky added 'and counter-revolutions' - has been amply demonstrated by the
history of the last three decades. Few periods in history have been filled with
such terrific convulsions and clashes between the nations and classes and such
kaleidoscopic changes and manipulations of the political regimes whereby finance
capital maintains its domination over the peoples. Thus, it becomes doubly important
for those who carry on the scientific teachings of Marxism, and who alone can
lay claim to make a theoretical analysis of events, to keep a scrupulous and
careful check on the changes which are taking place if they are correctly to
orientate the advance guard and give guidance to the masses.

In criticising the barren conceptions of Stalinism, which identified all regimes
to fascism at the time of the 'third period', Trotsky brilliantly characterised
the essence of the epoch as one of change and fluctuations, in which
generalisations would not suffice. Each stage must be examined concretely
by the vanguard who could thus understand and interpret events and draw
the correct practical conclusions for activity therefrom. He wrote:

"The vast importance of a correct theoretical orientation is most strikingly
manifested in a period of acute social conflict, of rapid political shifts,
of abrupt changes in the situation. In such periods, political conceptions
and generalisations are rapidly used up and require either a complete replacement
(which is easier) or their concretisation, precision and partial rectification
(which is harder.) It is in just such periods that all sorts of transitional,
intermediate situations and combinations arise, as a matter of necessity,
which upset the customary patterns and doubly require a sustained theoretical
attention. In a word, if in the pacific and 'organic' period (before the war)
one could still live on the revenue from a few ready-made abstractions, in our
time each new event forcefully brings home the most important law of the dialectic:
the truth is always concrete." (Bonapartism and Fascism, July
1934) [source]

Among the cadres of the Fourth International, there are comrades who have not
sufficiently understood this lesson. They continue to live on the 'revenue from
a few ready-made abstractions' instead of concretising or partially rectifying
previous generalisations. An outstanding example of this is the article of Pierre
Frank.

Frank attempts to equate all regimes in Western Europe to 'Bonapartism'. His
generalisations go even further: he argues that there have been Bonapartist
regimes in France since 1934; that it is impossible to have any but Bonapartist
or fascist regimes until the coming to power of the proletariat in Europe. This,
if you please, in the name of 'the continuity of our political analysis for
more than ten years of French history'! Such complacency reduces theory to formless
abstractions and conceals inevitable and episodic errors, thus making them into
a system. It has no place in the Fourth International.

Comrade Frank indiscriminately mixes the terms bourgeois democracy with Bonapartism,
not explaining the specific traits of either. He interchangeably speaks of 'Bonapartism',
'elements of Bonapartism' and he contrasts democratic liberties with 'a regime
which one can correctly define as democratic.' Yet the reader has to seek in
vain for a definition of his ideal 'democratic regime' as distinguished from
the very real bourgeois democracy. He denies the existence of democratic regimes
in Europe today because 'there is literally no place for them.'

Economic Basis and Political Superstructure

We will here repeat some elementary ideas of Marxism in order to arrive at
the necessary clarity and understanding of the shifting processes and changes
taking place in the regimes in Europe at the present time - at least in Western
Europe. The Eastern half, dominated directly by the Stalinist bureaucracy, develops
in a different direction and under different conditions.

The political character of a regime (Bonapartist, fascist, democratic)
is basically determined by the relations between the classes in the nation,
which vary at different stages. Its fundamental nature is determined, in the
last analysis, by its mode of production and property relations, by its
class character. Thus the regimes of Hitler(1) and
Roosevelt, of Attlee and Mussolini, of Franco and Gouin, of Peron and Salazar,
of de Valera and Chiang Kai Shek are all governments of the capitalist class,
for they rest upon the economy of capitalist exploitation. However, the class
nature of these regimes does not exhaust the problem. We have to classify
the instrument - which differs in each case - by which the bourgeoisie ensures
its dominance and rule. The character of this rule is decided not only by the
subjective wishes and needs of the finance-capitalists, which remain
but one factor in the process, but precisely by the objective-subjective inter-relations
between the classes at a given stage, which has been predicated by the previous
history and the development of the class struggle of the given country.

It is a vulgarisation of Marxism - vulgar materialism of the worst sort - to
argue that the superstructure of a society is determined immediately by the
development of its economy.

The disappearance of the economic basis on which the 'democracy' of the imperialists
is based, does not immediately lead to the disappearance of the bourgeois democracy.
It only prepares its collapse in the long run. Properly speaking, the
development of capitalism into imperialism by the beginning of this century
had already rendered outmoded the existence of bourgeois democracy. Yet we see
that bourgeois democracy managed to maintain itself for decades after its economic
base had disappeared.

That capitalism had outlived its historic functions was attested already by
the first imperialist world war. But this did not, and could not by itself,
lead to the overthrow of the capitalist system. The first world war led to favourable
conditions for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie on a world scale. But the proletariat
was prevented from carrying out its mission by the organisations of its own
creation. The social democracy betrayed the revolution and saved the capitalist
system from destruction. In the revolutionary epoch following world war one,
the bourgeoisie was compelled to lean on the social democracy for support, the
only reliable prop they had to maintain their rule. Where the bourgeoisie relied
on such regimes based on social democracy, uniting repression against the revolutionary
workers with reforms and half-reforms, these could only be characterised as
regimes of 'bourgeois democracy.' Thus, Lenin and Trotsky characterised the
counter-revolutionary regime in Germany in 1918, which was organised by social
democracy, as a bourgeois democratic regime.

It is ABC that the democratic liberties were gained in the struggle against
the bourgeoisie over a period of a century; the right to vote had to be fought
for and wrested from the bourgeoisie at a period of ascending capitalism,
at the time of the blossoming of bourgeois democracy. Even in its heyday
there was never an idyllic democratic state without police intervention and
without brute force.

Yet even at this stage when capitalism was still an ascending economy, there
were not only democratic regimes but Bonapartist regimes as well. In the classic
land of Bonapartism, both Louis Napoleon(2), and Bonaparte
himself came to power at a time when there was a veritable boom which lasted
in the one case for two decades. According to Comrade Frank's conception there
was no basis for Bonapartism; there should have only been bourgeois democracy.
But we see the problem is not so simple.

And after Louis Napoleon, bourgeois democracy (with one or two threats of dictatorship
- Boulangerism) lasted for decades in France. According to Frank's mysterious
conceptions, after Bonapartism - which means that the economic basis for democracy
is gone - It is no longer possible for the bourgeoisie to have democracy, but...only
Bonapartism.

It is difficult to understand why Comrade Frank stops at 1934 to trace Bonapartist
regimes in France. If we follow his method logically we have had Bonapartism
since the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon in 1851, or perhaps since the first
Bonaparte!

If there is a grain of sense in his case that the economic basis for reforms
has disappeared, all that it proves is not automatically and consequently a
regime of Bonapartism is posed but that the democratic regime under such conditions
will be of an extremely unstable character, afflicted with convulsions and crises,
which must make way either for the revolutionary proletarian dictatorship or
the open dictatorship of finance capital through Bonapartism or fascism.

Comrade Frank says the existence of democratic liberties does not suffice to
make a democratic regime. A profound observation! What follows? The existence
of Bonapartist measures does not make a regime Bonapartist either, Comrade Frank!
This argument is about as profound as those of the 'bureaucratic collectivises'
who argued that we had the intervention of the state in the economy in Germany
under Hitler, in France under Blum, in America under Roosevelt (National Industrial
Recovery Act), in Russia under Stalin...consequently all those regimes were
the same. It is not the points of similarity only - all human societies have
points of similarity, particularly different types of capitalist societies -
it is the decisive traits which determine our definition of regimes.

Counter-Revolution in a Democratic Form

The British RCP has characterised the regimes in Western Europe (France, Belgium,
Holland, Italy) as regimes of counter-revolution in a democratic form. Comrade
Pierre Frank claims that the idea of 'democratic counter-revolution' is 'devoid
of all content.' He would then he hard put to explain what the Weimar(3)
Republic organised by the social democracy in Germany was. He would be compelled
to argue that what took place in Germany in 1918, was not the proletarian
revolution which was betrayed by the 'counter-revolution in a democratic form'
(by the undemocratic and bloody suppression of the January 1919 uprisings),
but was a democratic revolution which overthrew the Kaiser and replaced his
regime by one of 'pure' bourgeois democracy! The fact that this regime was ushered
in by martial law and the conspiracy of the social democratic leaders with the
General Staff of the Reichswehr, the Junkers and the bourgeoisie, validates
entirely the conclusion of Lenin and Trotsky that there was a 'democratic' counter-revolution,
with the bourgeoisie using the social democrats as their agents.

In advance Trotsky foresaw and prepared theoretically for a similar situation
with the collapse of fascism in Italy, when he wrote in a letter to the Italian
comrades in 1930:

"Following the above comes the question of the 'transitional' period in
Italy. At the very outset it is necessary to establish very clearly: transition
from what to what? A period of transition from the bourgeois (or 'popular')
revolution to the proletarian revolution is one thing. A period of transition
from the fascist dictatorship to the proletarian dictatorship is another. If
the first conception is envisaged, the question of the bourgeois revolution
is posed in the first place and it is then a question of establishing the role
of the proletariat in it. Only after that will the question of the transitional
period toward a proletarian revolution be posed. If the second conception is
envisaged, the question is then posed of a series of battles, disturbances,
upsets in the situation, abrupt turns, constituting in their ensemble the different
stages of the proletarian revolution. These stages may be many in number. But
in no case can they contain within them a bourgeois revolution or its mysterious
hybrid: the 'popular' revolution.

"Does this mean that Italy cannot for a certain time again become a parliamentary
state or become a 'democratic republic'? I consider - in perfect agreement with
you, I think - that this eventuality is not excluded. But then it will not be
the fruit of a bourgeois revolution but the abortion of an insufficiently matured
and premature proletarian revolution. In case of a profound revolutionary crisis
and of mass battles in the course of which the proletarian vanguard will not
have been in a position to take power, it may be that the bourgeoisie will reconstruct
its power on 'democratic' bases.

"Can it be said, for example, that the present German republic constitutes
a conquest of the bourgeois revolution? Such an assertion would be absurd. There
was in Germany in 1918-19 a proletarian revolution which, deprived of leadership,
was deceived, betrayed and crushed. But the bourgeois counter-revolution nevertheless
found itself obliged to adapt itself to the circumstances resulting from this
crushing of the proletarian revolution and to assume the form of a republic
in the 'democratic' parliamentary form. Is the same - or about the same - eventuality
excluded from Italy? No, it is not excluded. The enthronement of fascism was
the result of the incompletion of the proletarian revolution in 1920. Only a
new proletarian revolution can overturn fascism. If it should not be destined
to triumph this time either (weakness of the Communist Party, manoeuvres and
betrayals of the social democrats, the freemasons, the catholics), the 'transitional'
state that the bourgeois counter-revolution would then be forced to set up in
the ruins of its power in a fascist form, could be nothing else than a parliamentary
and democratic state." (Problems of the Italian Revolution, 14 May,
1930) [source]

Events in Italy have demonstrated the remarkable foresight of Trotsky. The
bourgeoisie has been compelled to allow the jettisoning of the king(4) and the Stalinist-socialist traitors have headed off the
developing proletarian revolution into the channels of a 'parliamentary and
democratic state'. This of course, will not attain a stable base, but will be
subject to crises and upheavals, movements on the part of the proletariat, and
counter-movements of monarchists and fascists. Would Frank now deny the correctness
of Trotsky's conceptions and assert that we have had a Bonapartist state since
the fall of Mussolini?

It is incomprehensible that Frank, in his argumentation, should refer to this
very article of Trotsky's which puts forward precisely the opposite point of
view. After fascism what? asks the Old Man and answers that, as a means of preventing
the revolution in face of mass upsurge, the bourgeoisie will turn towards the
establishment of a bourgeois democratic republic. We note in this connection
that the immediate introduction of Bonapartism (allegedly because democracy
has no economic base) was not even considered by Trotsky.

From this can be seen that what is really 'devoid of content' is the mechanical
conception that counter-revolution can only manifest itself in the form of fascism
or Bonapartism, ie military-police dictatorships.

'The experience of history has shown, and events now unfolding in Europe demonstrate
irrefutably, that the methods of the bourgeoisie in its struggle against the
proletarian revolution vary widely and are not determined a priori. The
bourgeoisie makes use of different methods, relies on different strata, depending
on the class relation of forces in order to re-enforce or re-establish its rule.

Whether they can manoeuvre the Stalinists or manipulate their social democratic,
Bonapartist, or fascist agencies, or as sometimes happens, use all forces
simultaneously, does not depend only on the subjective intentions of the
ruling class, or on this or that adventurer, but on the objective conditions
and the inter-relations between all the classes in the nation - bourgeoisie,
petty bourgeoisie and proletariat, at any given time. To repeat mechanically
the conclusion that the existence of finance capital is incompatible with bourgeois
democracy in the contemporary period (which is indubitably correct within certain
limits), and thus that all regimes must be Bonapartist, is to substitute abstract
categories formulated on the basis of partial and insufficient historical experience,
or a narrow and incomplete view of the process as a whole, for a dialectical
analysis of events.

To understand the nature of the regimes in Western Europe today, we must know
the background on which they evolved. The revolutionary movement of the masses
following World War One was paralysed and betrayed by the social democrats,
who alone were able to save capitalism from destruction under the banner
of bourgeois democracy. The bourgeoisie was compelled to rely on its
social democratic agencies for mere survival.

The failure of the proletariat to take power could lead only to the further
degeneration and decay of capitalism. The ruin of the petty bourgeoisie, which
was shown no way out by the mass organisations of the proletariat, led to them
becoming a tool of fascist reaction. Trapped by the intolerable crisis of their
system in one country after another, through many transitions, the bourgeoisie
turned in the direction of open and unbridled dictatorship.

The wave of revolution was followed by a wave of counter-revolution. In Italy,
Germany and other countries, the bourgeoisie used the forces of the frenzied
petty bourgeoisie to destroy the organisations of the proletariat. They were
compelled at a later stage to turn on the petty bourgeoisie and transform themselves
into Bonapartist regimes, ie regimes resting directly on the support of the
military-police apparatus rather than regimes with a mass basis.

This could not solve the contradictions of the capitalist system on a national
or international scale but inevitably led to the second world war, in a frantic
endeavour by the bourgeoisie to find a way out by a repartition of the world.
But the second world war, even more than the first, put at stake the whole existence
of capitalism as a system. The bourgeoisie realised, with dread, that the unleashing
of the war would release tremendous revolutionary energy from the depths of
the masses and recreate the conditions favourable to the overthrow of capitalism
on a continental scale.

The victories of the nazis and the conquest of practically the whole of the
continent of Europe had, as a by-product, the effect of temporally destroying
the mass basis of reaction throughout Europe. Reaction and the capitalist system
rested directly on the bayonets of the nazi fascist armies. The hated Quislings
played a purely auxiliary role. With the victories of the Red Army and the collapse
of Hitler and Mussolini, the problem of the socialist revolution was posed on
the order of the day throughout Europe. Reaction was without a strong base in
the populations and without a strong stable military-police apparatus. The
allied armies could not be a stable prop for reaction and open military dictatorship
for long. In most of the European countries the bourgeoisie was faced with mass
upsurge, which they could not bridle with their own forces.

Greece was the exception. Only after a civil war and a bloody war of intervention
was it possible to install a semi-Bonapartist or Bonapartist regime, which is
step-by-step attempting to impose a totalitarian regime in that country. The
imperialists are aware of the impossibility of using such methods on a continental
scale. In addition, in Greece the power of reaction had to be maintained at
all costs for fear that this last outpost of British imperialism in the Balkan
peninsula should, in common with the rest of the Balkans, fall under the sway
of the Stalinist bureaucracy. But even here it was not possible to destroy completely
the mass organisations of the proletariat.

Nothing saved the capitalist system in Western Europe except the betrayal of
social democracy and Stalinism. When the bourgeoisie leans on its social democratic
and Stalinist agencies for the purpose of counter-revolution, what is
the 'content' of that counter-revolution? Bonapartist, fascist, authoritarian?
Of course not! Its content is that of a 'counter revolution in a democratic
form.'

Of course, the bourgeoisie cannot stabilise itself for any length of time on
the basis of the democratic counter-revolution. Where the revolution is stemmed
by the lackeys of the bourgeoisie, the class forces do not stay suspended. After
a period, which can be more or less protracted according to the economic and
political developments internationally and within the given country, the bourgeoisie
shifts to Bonapartist or fascist counter-revolution.

That is how events manifested themselves in Italy within two years of the ebbing
of the revolutionary tide provoked by world war one, and in Germany over a period
of 15 years. The change in class relationships reflected itself in the change
in regimes through democracy, preventative Bonapartism, to fascism, pure Bonapartist
military dictatorship.

Despite the further degeneration of its economic and political base, the failure
of the workers once again to take power, destroy capitalist relations and organise
society anew, has resulted in the establishment of bourgeois democratic governments
in Italy, France and other countries, based upon the manipulation of the Stalinists
and social democrats. To argue that counter- revolution or the rule of the bourgeoisie
in the present period can only manifest itself in Bonapartism, fascism or Franco-type
governments, is to abandon the Marxist appreciation of the processes in modern
society. Taking into account the many factors involved in the history of the
period, including the weakness of the Marxist current, it could have been, and
was, predicted in advance what the developments in Western Europe would be.
But the process can only be understood if one takes into account the real nature
of democracy, Bonapartism, fascism, and not merely their outward forms.

Differing Regimes in Capitalist Society

The classic Bonapartism of the first Napoleon rose out of the bourgeois democratic
revolution in the period of the youth and vigour of capitalism. Bonapartism,
the rule of the sword over society, represented a position where the
state assumed a relative independence of the classes, balancing between the
hostile classes and arbitrating between them. It remained, nevertheless, an
instrument above all, of the big capitalists. Napoleon, by leaning on the support
of the peasants, could maintain himself for a whole historical period because
of the development of the productive forces in France at this period.

So with Napoleon the Little, who established his power in France in the coup
d'etat of 1851. Marx, in the Eighteenth Brumaire, described the position
thus: "the State has gone back to its earliest form, in which the sword rules
without shame and club law prevails. [Hardly a mirror of the regime of de Gaulle
in France after the liberation! - EG]. Thus is the coup-de-main of February
1848 answered by the coup-de-tete of December 1851."
[source (translation differs)]

That is the essence of Bonapartism: naked, military-police dictatorship, the
'arbiter' with a sword. A regime which indicates that the antagonisms within
society have become so great that the state machine, 'regulating' and 'ordering'
these antagonisms, while remaining an instrument of the property owners, assumes
a certain independence of all the classes. A 'national judge' concentrating
power in his hands, personally 'arbitrates' the conflicts within the nation,
playing off one class against another, nevertheless remaining a tool of the
property owners. At the same time, we characterise as Bonapartist, a regime
where the basic class forces of bourgeoisie and proletariat more or less balance
one another, thus allowing the state power to manoeuvre and balance the contending
camps and again giving the state power a certain independence in relation to
society as a whole.

However, there is a big difference between the role of Bonapartism in the period
of capitalism's ascending phase and the period of its decline. We give two quotations
from Trotsky explaining this difference with the utmost clarity, in Germany,
The Only Road.

"In its time, we designated the Bruening(5) government as Bonapartism ('caricature of Bonapartism'),
that is, as a regime of the military police dictatorship. As soon as the struggle
of two social strata - the haves and the have-nots, the exploiter and the exploited
- reaches its highest tension, the conditions are given for the domination of
bureaucracy, police, soldiery. The government becomes 'independent' of society.
Let us once more recall: if two forks are stuck symmetrically into a cork, the
latter can stand even on the head of a pin. That is precisely the scheme of
Bonapartism. To be sure, such a government does not cease being the clerk of
the property-owners. Yet the clerk sits on the back of the boss, rubs his neck
raw and does not hesitate at times to dig his boots into his face.

"It might have been assumed that Bruening would hold on until the final
solution. Yet, in the course of events, another link inserted itself: the Papen
government. Were we to be exact, we should have to make a rectification of our
old designation: the Bruening government was a pre-Bonapartist government. Bruening
was only a precursor. In a perfected form, Bonapartism came upon the scene in
the Papen-Schleicher government (September 1932)."
[source]

And further on:

"However, in spite of the appearance of concentrated forces, the Papen
government as such is weaker yet than its predecessor. The Bonapartist
regime can attain a comparatively stable and durable character only in the event
that it brings a revolutionary epoch to a close; when the relationship of forces
has already been tested in battles; when the revolutionary classes are already
spent; while the possessing classes have not yet freed themselves from the fear;
will not the morrow bring new convulsions? Without this basic condition, that
is, without a preceding exhaustion of the mass energies in battles, a Bonapartist
regime is in no position to develop."
[source]

The Bonapartism at the stage of capitalism's rise, raising itself above society,
suppressing and 'arbitrating' the open conflicts within it and regulating the
class antagonisms, is strong and confident. Under the conditions of a powerful
development of the productive forces, it attains a certain stability. But the
Bonapartism of capitalism's decline is affected by senility. Rising out of the
crisis of capitalist society, it cannot solve any of the problems with which
it is faced. The main crisis of society, the conflict between the productive
forces and private ownership and the national state, has become so great, the
class antagonisms which it engenders, so tense, that this which alone allows
the rise of senile Bonapartism, at the same time, as a consequence, makes it
so weak and feeble that its whole structure is shaky and likely to be overthrown
in the series of crises which confront it. It is this weakness of Bonapartism
which leads to the bourgeoisie and military clique surrendering the power to
fascism and unleashing the greedy bands of maddened petty bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat
against the proletariat and its class organisations.

The differing categories of regimes, though of vital importance for Marxist
theory and practice, are not metaphysical abstractions, indicating a rigid,
fixed and eternal differentiation between them.

There are so many factors involved, that it is necessary to examine each regime
concretely before categorically defining its position.

It is only necessary to point out that even within each rough category, widely
differing regimes can be comprised. England with her feudal remnants (House
of Lords and monarchy) and barbarous oppression of colonial peoples, is a 'democracy'.
The Federal Republic of Switzerland, and France with its laws based on the Code
Napoleon, the United States, Weimar Germany and Eire - despite their wide
differences, remain 'democracies'. What, then, is the dominating thread which
places these regimes under one head?

Despite their diverse histories, which explains their different national peculiarities,
they all possess certain specific traits in common. These are the traits
which are decisive in determining the Marxist classification. All have independent
workers' organisations: trade unions, parties, clubs, etc, with the rights which
go with them. The right to strike, organise, the right to vote, free speech,
press, etc, and the other rights which have been the by-product of the class
struggle of the proletariat in the past. (Here we might add that the loss of
this or that right would not, in itself, he decisive in our analysis of a regime.
It is the totality of the relations which is the determining factor.) In one
sense, the existence, within capitalism, of elements of the new society.
Or, as explained by Trotsky in Germany, What Next [source] in answering the Stalinist
ultra-lefts, under the regime of the bourgeoisie there already exists the
embryo of the rule of the working class in the form of the workers' organisations.

Where these organisations exist and play a powerful role (in France and Italy
they are stronger than they have ever been) the bourgeoisie rules through the
leaders and top layers of these organisations. It is not without interest, as
Lenin pointed out, that at a certain stage, the bourgeoisie even ruled through
the Soviets, or more correctly, the Menshevik leadership of the Soviets.

Fascism too, has its peculiarities. The regimes of Franco, Mussolini, Hitler
and Pilsudsky(6), all are comprised within this conception.
Yet there are wide differences between them. What fundamentally unites the conception
is the complete destruction of all working-class organisations. Yet even
here we see that right up to the outbreak of the war, Polish fascism, far weaker
than that of Germany and Italy, had not completely succeeded in destroying the
workers' organisations and may have been overthrown before it finally succeeded
in doing so.

Bonapartism too, shows a similar variety. Napoleon, Louis Napoleon, von Schleicher
and Papen, Petain, and the fascist-regimes-become-Bonapartist - all were Bonapartist
regimes. What is it that they have in common? The independence of the state,
the concentration of power 'personally', resting directly and openly on the
domination of the state machine through the naked power of the military-police
apparatus, 'Rule by the sword.' Whatever differences there
may be between the regimes, the existence of workers' organisations with attenuated
or limited rights in certain cases, they all have the above mentioned features
in common. The specific peculiarities in each case would again be determined
by the history of the country, the development of the social contradictions
which made the development of Bonapartism possible, etc, etc.

Thus the weak and sterile Bonapartism of Petain and von Schleicher in the epoch
of capitalist decline resembled only as a caricature the vigorous and powerful
regime established by Napoleon in its period of ascent. In the change from democracy
to fascism, there must be one, perhaps many, transitional phases. Thus the path
for Bonapartism is prepared by the division of the nation into two hostile camps
- that of the fascist petit bourgeoisie and that of the organised working class.
Nominally, the state power assumes an independence of both and the military-police
regime established prepares the way for the handing of power to fascism. (The
bourgeoisie prefers to rule through democratic means. Under the impact of crisis,
however, they utilise the fascist gangs as a terrorist agency for pressure on
the proletariat so that they can push through Bonapartist dictatorial measures.
Only as a last resort do they reluctantly surrender power to the fascists.)
At least that was the process in Italy and Germany. Depending on many factors,
including the policy of the revolutionary party of the proletariat, events in
Europe and elsewhere may develop on somewhat different lines, should reaction
succeed in temporarily stabilising itself.

However, it is important to note that the regimes of Schleicher and Papen,
of Petain and General Sirovy in Czechoslovakia after Munich all developed
directly (through intermediate stages perhaps) out of the regimes of
bourgeois democracy. The pre-Bonapartist, or even Bonapartist regimes, of
Doumergue(7), Laval and Flandin prepared the way for the
Popular Front in France which in turn paved the way again for a development
towards Bonapartism. To call the Popular Front under Blum 'Bonapartism' as does
Comrade Frank in the citation which follows, can only cause immeasurable confusion
in the ranks of the Fourth International:

"...But the Bonapartism of declining capitalism can cloak itself in other
costumes. In certain cases it is fairly difficult to recognise it, for example
in the case of governments, of the left, even very much to the left, notably
of the Popular Front type. There, Bonapartism is so outrageously varnished with
a democratic sheen that many allow themselves to be taken in by it (!)"

In those words of Comrade Frank is the key to the confusion in the characterisation
of regimes. It is easy to slip into such errors because in the same way as the
embryo of a new form of society exists in the workers' organisations, so the
possibility of Bonapartism is rooted in the structure of society under bourgeois
democracy. Within every state there is reflected the antagonisms within society,
even in the freest bourgeois democratic society. As Engels wrote in his book
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State:

"The state is therefore by no means a power imposed on society from the
outside; just as little is it the reality of the moral idea, the image and reality
of reason, as Hegel asserted. Rather it is a product of society at a certain
stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled
in an insoluble contradiction within itself, that it is cleft into irreconcilable
antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms,
classes with conflicting economic interests, may not consume themselves and
society in sterile struggle, a power apparently standing above society becomes
necessary, whose purpose is to moderate the conflict and keep it within the
bounds of 'order'; and this power arising out of society, but placing itself
above it and increasingly separating itself from it, is the state." (Peking,
1978, page 205)
[source (translation differs)]

In the last analysis every state is based on naked force. The army officers,
the general staff clique, the police and civil service bureaucracy, trained
and selected to serve the interests of capitalism, provide the soil on which
military plots and conspiracies thrive, given conditions of crisis and social
ferment.

Pierre Frank confuses here the role of the state with Bonapartism. A democracy
that was not based on force, that did not have an apparatus placing itself above
society, has never existed and never will exist. But this does not make Bonapartism.

But because every state is based on armed bodies of men with its appendages
in the form of prisons, courts, etc, and thus even under the fullest democratic
regime we have the hidden dictatorship of capitalism, it does not follow that
every repressive regime is necessarily Bonapartist. Repression and suppression
of the rights of the workers under conditions of 'emergency' take place under
every regime, including the democratic, when the basic interests of capital
are threatened and till 'normal' conditions are restored - ie, till the masses
accept without active rebellion, the yoke of capital. The bourgeoisie preserves
an extreme flexibility, manipulating the regimes according to the resistance
of the masses, the class forces, etc. Thanks to the betrayals of the workers'
leaderships they are enabled to do this.

Prognosis in the Light of Events

Whatever their original desires or wishes to impose Bonapartist regimes in
Europe, Anglo-American imperialism soon saw the impossibility of this (apart
from Greece) in the incalculable dangers which it would bring and in Western
Europe swung over to democratic regimes, based on a disarmed proletariat.

Events in France and Western Europe have confirmed the incorrectness of the
method of Pierre Frank. Everywhere in Western Europe since the 'liberation',
the tendency has been for a steady movement towards bourgeois democracy and
not towards greater and greater dictatorial regimes; towards an increase in
democratic rights, not towards their limitation. At a later stage
this tendency will be reversed, but at present the motion in Western Europe
is towards bourgeois democratic regimes. Thus in Italy we have the establishment
of the bourgeois democratic republic, trade unions, etc; in France we have elections,
parties, trade unions, etc; in Belgium and Holland we have democratic elections.
The swing of the masses towards socialism-communism is reflected in the fact
that these parties have secured a greater percentage of the votes than at any
time in history. In order to mobilise the petty bourgeois reaction as a counterpoise
against them, the bourgeoisie, at this stage, is leaning not on fascist
reaction (that is still well in reserve) but on the catholic and christian
parties basing themselves on parliamentary democracy. This gives the bourgeoisie
a breathing space to prepare at a later stage and under the necessary favourable
conditions for a transition through Bonapartist regimes to totalitarian dictatorship.

It is clear that the position today is entirely different from the position
in Germany and Italy before the victory of fascism, where mass parties of fascism
were organised and the possibility of the state manoeuvring between the two
mortally hostile camps, was posed by the whole situation. Far from this, in
Italy and France the Christian Democratic parties are collaborating with the
workers' organisations in a typical coalition cabinet of bourgeois democracy.
The bourgeoisie cannot do otherwise because of the danger of revolutionary disturbances
on the part of the masses.

The situation is similar to that in Germany in the Weimar Republic. In order
to stem the revolution the bourgeoisie organised a coalition government of social
democracy and the Catholic Centre(8).

Was this Bonapartism? Obviously not. But as a result of the policy of social
democracy they were punished by the petty bourgeois swinging to reaction and
a Bonapartist-monarchist attempt at a coup d'etat in the Kapp Putsch(9)
in 1920. As is well known, this attempted Bonapartist coup was defeated by the
masses, where the communists and socialists participated in a general strike.
The indignation of the workers, owing to the correct propaganda of the CommunistParty in warning of this danger and forming a united front to beat it
off, led to the workers in the Ruhr attempting the seizure of power. The reaction
then joined together with the social democrats to crush this movement of the
masses. This in its turn, paved the way for an uneasy and unstable regime of
bourgeois democracy.

The false position on the nature of the regimes in Europe flows from an incorrect
perspective. The American comrades argued that only Franco-type military dictatorships
were possible in Europe after the victory of the allied imperialists. Pierre
Frank approvingly quotes a wrong position taken by the International Secretariat
(IS) in 1940:

"If England should install de Gaulle in France tomorrow, his regime would
not in the least be distinguished from that of the Bonapartist government of
Petain."
[source]

A trifle different, Comrade Frank! For the workers a decisive difference! It
is true that the capitalist class continued to rule under de Gaulle as they
did under Petain. But to argue in 1946 that the regimes could not be distinguished
is to fall into the sectarian stupidity of the Stalinists in Germany who couldn't
distinguish between a capitalist regime leaning on the workers' organisations
and the abolition of these organisations by fascism.

Pierre Frank's confusion is further exposed by his triumphant declaration that
the Petain regime was Bonapartist. Trotsky said that the Petain regime was Bonapartist.
But Frank just does not understand what Trotsky was driving at. In their period
of decay and decline, Trotsky referred to the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini
as Bonapartist regimes. The only difference between these regimes and that of
Petain was that Petain never had a mass base in the petty bourgeoisie, like
Hitler and Mussolini, and in that sense could not be called fascist, but Bonapartist.
For this reason his regime was much weaker and could be more easily over-thrown
by a movement of the masses. Petain had to lean on foreign bayonets for his
rule. Otherwise there is no difference between the regimes of Franco, Mussolini
and Hitler in their decaying phases and that of Petain.

Comrade Frank declares:

"...our most responsible International body has predicted that a simple
substitution of gangs following a victory of the Allies would not signify a
change in the nature of the political regime. We find ourselves in the presence
of an evaluation on the historical scale based on positions which were defended
for many years by the Fourth International against all other theories and cheap
labels spread by the other tendencies and formations of the labour movement.
If an error was committed it would be truly a considerable one and we would
be urgently obliged to seek the reasons for it and correct it. As for ourselves,
we don't believe that our organisation was in error on this point..."

The statement of the IS made in 1940 was incorrect. We made the same mistake.
Under the circumstances it was excusable. But to repeat in 1946 a mistake that
was already clear by 1943 is inexcusable. A British Trotskyist resolution, written
in 1943, in which we corrected ourselves, analysed the coming situation in Europe
as follows:

"In the absence of experienced Trotskyist parties with roots and traditions
among the masses, the first stages of the revolutionary struggles in Europe
will most likely result in a period of Kerenskyism or Popular Frontism. This
is already presaged by the initial struggles of the Italian workers and the
repeated betrayals of social democracy and Stalinism." (Main resolution
at the National Conference of the Workers International League, October 1943).

Events have demonstrated the correctness of this analysis. Instead of frankly
facing up to an error in perspective, Frank flies in the face of reality and
attempts to convert an error into a virtue.

Frank takes France as the keystone of his thesis. He surely must be lamenting
this by now. Because it is France, above all, which has mirrored the process
very clearly. France is the key to Europe and any mistakes on the nature of
the French regime could be fatal for the young cadres of Trotskyism.

Let us examine the situation. Pierre Frank visualises the development as follows:
Bonapartism since 1934, because, you see, the bourgeoisie could not afford bourgeois
democracy; Petain was Bonaparte: de Gaulle was Bonaparte; the Popular Front
(Blum!) was Bonapartism; in fact, as the metaphysicians would say: 'in the twilight
all cats are grey'. The thesis is that all were Bonaparte. It follows that Gouin
is Bonaparte and the government which will follow also will be Bonapartist.
If this madness should infect the French, our French Party will be in a sorry
state. Happily, this danger apparently does not exist.

A Marxist appreciation would be somewhat different from that of Pierre Frank.
What was the development of the regime - from what to what is it evolving? What
is the position of the classes? What are the relations between the classes?
A sober appreciation of the last two years will tell us that (a) here we have
an unachieved proletarian revolution; result (b) unstable bourgeois democracy,
assembly, elections, constituent, bourgeois-democratic constitution; (c) in
this setting a candidate Bonaparte. The real power rests in the principal working
class parties. A would-be Hitler striving for power and a Hitler in power are
not one and the same thing. A would-be Bonaparte like de Gaulle and a real Bonaparte
wielding real personal power with the sword, are two different things. De Gaulle
may yet be a French Franco, but one does not declare the enemy victorious before
the decisive battle has begun.

Bonapartism in the modern epoch, by its very nature, must be a regime of transition
- transition to fascism, transition to democracy, or even to proletarian revolution:
a period of manoeuvring between the classes. That there are elements of Bonapartism
in the situation in Europe, goes without saying. These elements can be transformed
into the dominant ones, but only under certain conditions. If one declares a
regime Bonapartist, then the specific features of the regime must be brought
out. In spite of Pierre Frank's zealous endeavours to elevate de Gaulle into
a position to which he only aspired, the 'Bonaparte' de Gaulle, measuring the
relation of forces, was forced to retire sadly from the scene to await a more
propitious moment.

There precisely is the nub of the question: it is necessary to answer Stalinist
and socialist propaganda by warning that their policies inevitably bring the
dangers of counter-revolution and Bonapartism: to warn of the threat of military-police
dictatorship which hangs over the proletariat if it does not disperse the Bonapartist
nests, composed of the cadres of the general staff, police and civil bureaucracy,
and take power into its own hands.

Comrades must not make the mistake of the German communists who declared every
regime in turn 'fascist' till in the end, by their lulling and confusing the
advance guard, the real Hitler arrived. Of course, if Pierre Frank continues
to repeat it long enough, no doubt reality will, in the end, coincide with his
definition and we will have a Bonapartist regime in France and other countries
in Europe. But for Marxists this is not good enough. We must painstakingly analyse
and explain every change in government. In that way we can prepare for the events
to come.

Was the Kerensky Regime 'Bonapartist'?

Scattered through his article, Frank refers to 'Bonapartist a-la-Kerensky',
the Bonapartism of Kerensky, thus assuming that Bonapartism had in fact been
established under the Kerensky regime - entirely unwarranted by a knowledge
of the period.

Frank takes one or two conditional formulations of Lenin and Trotsky in relation
to the Kerensky regime in Russia and tries to convert them into hard and fast
definitions. In reality, the record speaks against him. It is significant to
note that the chapter in the History of the Russian Revolution to which
he refers, is headed, not 'Bonapartism', but Kerensky and Kornilov - Elements
of Bonapartism in the Russian Revolution. Trotsky was always particularly
careful on definitions and thus when he says 'elements', he does not mean the
thing itself. And for very good reason. No doubt Kerensky would have liked
to play the role of Bonaparte. The possibilities of Bonapartism were rooted
in the situation. But Bonapartism was never achieved because the Bolshevik Party
was strong and achieved. the proletarian revolution, leaving no avenue for adventurers
to take control. Many citations could be given to show the conditional nature
of the characterisation of the Kerensky regime as Bonapartist. In the very section
quoted by Comrade Frank, from which he abstracts the single sentence characterising
Kerensky as 'the mathematical centre of Russian Bonapartism', Trotsky wrote:

"The two hostile camps invoked Kerensky, each seeing in him a part of
itself, and both swearing fealty to him. Trotsky wrote while in prison: 'led
by politicians who are afraid of their own shadow, the Soviet did not dare take
the power. The Kadet Party, representing all the propertied cliques, could not
yet seize the power. It remained to find a great conciliator, a mediator, a
court of arbitration.'

"In a manifesto to the people issued by Kerensky in his own name, he declared:
'I, as head of the government...consider that I have no right to hesitate if
the changes (in the structure of the government)...increase my responsibility
in the matters of supreme administration.' That is the unadulterated phraseology
of Bonapartism. But nevertheless, although supported from both right and left
it never got beyond phraseology.'" (History of the Russian Revolution
, Sphere, Volume III page 155. Our emphasis)
[source]

Trotsky wrote this as a historian, soberly evaluating and weighing every word.
And if one studies the works of Lenin conscientiously, even though written in
the heat of events, one cannot but see the falsity of Frank's position in confusing
the germs with the disease. Lenin writes, for example, in his work Towards
the Seizure of Power: 'Kerensky's cabinet is indubitably the first step
towards Bonapartism.' (Collected works Volume 25 page 224)
[source (translation and title differs)]

Here can be seen the conditional character of what Lenin and Trotsky
were talking about. In the very section of State and Revolution quoted
by Frank, in which Lenin refers to the Kerensky government as Bonapartist, the
conditional character of this is shown by the paragraphs immediately following.
In dealing with the state and all its forms in an instrument for the
exploitation of the Oppressed Class (that is what the chapter is headed
in which these references to Bonapartism occur, and that is what Lenin is dealing
with), he goes on to say:

"In a democratic republic, Engels continues, 'wealth wields its power
indirectly, but all the more effectively', first, by means of 'direct corruption
of officials' (America); second, by means of the 'alliance of the government
with the stock exchange' (France and America).

"At the present time, imperialism and the domination of the banks have
'developed' to an unusually fine art both these methods of defending and asserting
the omnipotence of wealth in democratic republics of all descriptions. Since,
for instance, in the very first months of the Russian democratic republic, one
might say during the honeymoon union of the 'Socialists' - Social-Revolutionaries
and Mensheviks - joined in wedlock with the bourgeoisie." (CW Volume 25,
page 397)
[source (translation differs)]

To clinch the matter, in a later section of the same pamphlet dealing with
the same period, in contrasting a soviet to a parliamentary body, Lenin goes
on to say:

"'A working, and not a parliamentary body' - this hits the vital spot
of present-day parliamentarians and the parliamentary social-democratic 'lap-dogs'!
Take any parliamentary country, from America to Switzerland, from France to England,
Norway and so forth - the actual work of the 'state' there is done behind the
scenes and is carried out by the departments, the offices and the staffs. Parliament
itself is given up to talk for the special purpose of the fooling the 'common
people'. This is so true that even in the Russian Republic, a bourgeois democratic
republic, all these aims of parliamentarism were immediately revealed, even
before a real parliament was created..." (CW Volume 25, page 428. Our
emphasis).
[source (translation differs)]

We would have to reduce Lenin to a mass of stupid contradictions if we used
the method of Pierre Frank. For him there is no real contradiction because he
makes no real contradiction between bourgeois democracy and Bonapartism. If
he carried this through he would have to argue that we had both bourgeois
democracy and Bonapartism in France and his objection to the term 'bourgeois
democratic regime' becomes entirely incomprehensible.

Frank points to the fact that the British comrades have referred to the Labour
government in Britain as a Kerensky regime and then proceeds to argue that this
is incorrect because we have not a Bonpartist regime in this country:

"Since we here speak of the resolution of our English comrades let us
note that it defines the new Labour government as 'Kerenskyism'. The Bonapartism,
that they ignored, has found the means to insinuate itself into their document
under a very special name. But we do not think the present Attlee government
is Bonapartist a-la-Kerensky."

This merely serves to demonstrate that Frank has not understood the meaning
of the Kerenskiad or of Bonapartism. The Kerenskiad is the last, or 'one before
the last' left government before the proletarian revolution, or, we may add,
the bourgeois counter-revolution. Under given conditions, the social tensions
and sharp conflicts of the classes in such a period would tend to give rise
to Bonapartist conspiracies and plots. That is precisely what happened in the
Russian revolution, and that is why Lenin and Trotsky referred to the Bonapartist
tendencies within the Kerensky regime. However, for Comrade Frank's benefit,
this does not make a Kerensky regime a Bonapartist regime. Here perhaps we had
better make haste to add, that in referring to the Labour government as a Kerensky
government, this was not at all a finished evaluation, but an analogy which
we invested with appropriate and necessary safeguards. To put the question beyond
dispute, we quote from our resolution:

"At a later stage the most resolute section of the bourgeoisie will begin
to seek a solution in a Royalist or military dictatorship on the lines of the
Spanish Primo de Rivera, or some similar solution. Royalist or fascist bands
under the guise of ex-servicemen's or 'patriotic' associations will begin to
spring up.

"Events may speed up or slow down the processes but what is certain is
the heightening of social tension and class hatreds. The period of triumphantreaction has drawn to a close, a new revolutionary epoch opens up in
Britain. With many ebbs and flows, with a greater or lesser speed, the revolution
is beginning. The Labour government is a Kerensky government. That does
not mean that the tempo of development will match that of the events in Russia
after March 1917, on the contrary, the revolution will probably assume a long
drawn out character but it provides the background against which the mass revolutionary
party will be built."

Fortunately, to put the position in its proper perspective, Trotsky gave a
definition of Kerenskyism - (he didn't call it Bonapartism!) when he dealt with
the false positions of the Comintern in relation to the Spanish revolution of
1931:

"...We see that fascism [we may add Bonapartism - EG] does not at all
represent the only means of the bourgeoisie in its struggle against the revolutionary
masses. The regime existing in Spain today (a coalition government of the bourgeois
republicans and Socialist Party similar to that in Italy and France today -
EG), corresponds best to the conception of the Kerenskiad, that is, the last,
(or 'one before the last') 'left' government which the bourgeoisie can only
set up in its struggle against the revolution. But this kind of government does
not necessarily signify weakness and prostration. In the absence of a strong
revolutionary party of the proletariat, a combination of semi-reforms, left
phrases and gestures still more to the left and reprisals, can prove to be of
much more effective service to the bourgeoisie than fascism. [We may add, naked
military dictatorship - EG]" (Germany, the key to the international
situation, November 1931)
[source]

Frank's hazy notions of democracy and Bonapartism can be seen in his references
scattered throughout his article. To take a few examples:

"The use of democratic slogans - combined with transitional slogans is
justified more precisely, because the possibilities of a democratic regime
are non-existent..."

"Precisely because we do not generally have in Europe at the present
time democratic regimes, because there is literally no place for them..."

"One must no more confuse the Bonapartism 'of the right' with fascism
than the Bonapartism 'of the left' with democracy. We have seen that Bonapartism
takes very different forms according to the conditions in which the two mortally
opposed camps find themselves; we maintain also that the existence
of democratic liberties, even of very great democratic liberties, does not suffice
to make a regime democratic. The Bonapartists a-la-Kerensky, Popular
Front...are even notorious for their flood of democratic liberty up to the point
where capitalist society thereby even risks its balance and is in danger of
capsizing. Democratic liberties do not proceed, as in a regime which one
can correctly define as democratic, from the existence of a margin for
reform within capitalism, but on the contrary, from a situation of acute crisis,
the result of the absence of all margin or reforms."

"...The regime of the Popular Front was not a democratic regime;
it contained within itself numerous elements of Bonapartism as we shall see
further on."

The conception of democracy which is put forward by comrade Frank never existed
in heaven or earth. It exists only in the idealistic norms of liberalism. Always,
democracy, ie bourgeois democracy, has been built on the framework of repression.
Every bourgeois constitution or regime contains its Article 48 as in the
Weimar Constitution. The very existence of class society presupposes a regime
of oppression. But only one who has abandoned Marxist discipline of thought
and operates on the basis of metaphysical categories can equate democracy with
Bonapartism, or for that matter with fascism. Though there are many points of
similarity between these regimes, and elements of naked military rule in all
these regimes in one degree or another. But quantity changes into quality. What
dictates the nature of the regime is not this or that element, but its
basic features. Democracy today can become Bonapartism tomorrow and be
changed into fascism the next day. Fascism, as we have seen, can be transformed
into democracy and the process repeated.

The Marxist method is not to lump all regimes indiscriminately together. That
is the easy way, but it will lead to blunders and confusion. The Marxist method
is to examine things in their process of change and evolution. To examine each
government in turn, to establish its specific features and tendencies. To prepare
for abrupt changes and transitions, which is the basic characteristic of our
epoch, and thus to rectify and delimit, if necessary, our characterisations
at each successive stage. The painful limitations of Pierre Frank's method (which
he labels Marxism but is in reality impressionism) is summed up in his own words:

"The term 'Bonapartism' does not completely exhaust the characterisation
of the regime, but it is indispensable to employ it in present day Europe, if
one wishes to go forward with the least possible chance of error. Let us add
finally that Marxism is not alone in the possession of such important general
ideas: all the sciences do likewise. Thus chemists call bodies carbides which
differ more widely from one another than the Bonapartism of Schliecher and that
of Kerensky. And chemistry doesn't get along so badly either on that account.
The contrary is true."

The Stalinists used the same method during the Third Period with lamentable
results in Germany. Starting with a correct generalisation that all the parties
from social democracy to fascism were agents of the capitalist class...they
ended up by saying that, therefore...there was no difference between them -
all were fascists of different varieties. For the scientist as for the Marxist,
the problem begins where, for Frank, it ends. A chemist can classify certain
bodies under a general heading of carbides. But a chemist who stopped at this
definition would not get along so well! If, for example, on the basis that a
chemist had defined silicon carbide (carborundum) and calcium carbide, all under
the same heading of 'carbides', one attempted to work an acetylene lamp on a
bicycle with the former instead of the latter, some very sad results would occur.
It would not be possible to light the path ahead. No more can Frank's method
cast light on the nature of the regimes in Europe.

Notes

(1) Government leaders in Germany, America, Britain,
Italy, Spain, France, Argentina, Portugal, Ireland and China in the period 1943-6
who presided over various types of regimes ranging from fascist to social democratic,
but all based on capitalism.

(2) Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I), came to power
in a coup on 18 Brumaire (9-10 November 1799) and had himself proclaimed emperor
in 1804. Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon III) won the presidential election in 1848.
In a coup in 1851 he dissolved the legislative assembly and in 1852 declared
himself emperor.

(3) Weimar was the city in Germany where the new
constitution was formulated in 1919. The Reichswehr was the regular army of
Weimar Germany. For a full account of the 1918 revolution and the January 1919
'Spartacist Rising' see Germany - From Revolution To Counter-Revolution by
Rob Sewell (Fortress).

(4) When the Allies liberated Rome in May 1944,
they blocked any attempt, contrary to previous agreements they had, by the exiled
King Victor Emmanuel, to return to the the throne for fear of provoking a new
uprising by the workers.

(5) Heinrich Bruening was German Chancellor 1930-32.
At the end of 1931 he annulled virtually all union contracts and restricted
the press. Kurt von Schleicher, a Reichswehr general, succeeded von Papen as
Chancellor in December 1932. He was replaced by Hitler within two months.

(6) Josef Pilsudsky led a coup in Poland in 1926,
and became dictator until his death in 1935.

(7) Gaston Doumergue, a former president of France,
became premier after the attempted coup of 6 February 1934, promising a 'strong'
government. Pierre Laval, French premier 1935-6, and premier of the collaborationist
Vichy regime in 1942. Pierre Viandin succeeded Doumergue as premier in 1934-35.

(8) The Catholic Centre Party was a German Christian
Democratic party.

(9) For a full account of the Kapp Putsch see Germany
- From Revolution to Counter-Revolution by Rob Sewell. (Fortress)